Using i-TRiLOGI

A.     Introduction to i-TRiLOGI Client/Server  Architecture

1. i-TRiLOGI is a Client/Server application suite.  The entire program is broken into two parts: the Server  and the Client.

2. Client: The i-TRiLOGI program is the one which you use to create your ladder logic + TBASIC program and is called the "Client" program. ( If you are programming the PLC offline then you only need to run the client program without the server.) The beauty of the client/server configuration is that it does not matter whether the server and client are located at the same computer or at 10,000 miles apart and they work exactly the same way. The client and the server can communicate via any form of network connection, including the Internet. This makes it possible for the user to program the PLCs either locally or remotely via the Internet or even wirelessly via mobile Internet.

   Another important advantage of client/server architecture is that multiple clients may access the same server simultaneously. Hence you can run multiple copies of the i-TRiLOGI clients at different places around the world simultaneously for troubleshooting a single PLC. You can also run the i-TRiLOGI client AND the TRi-ExcelLink clients simultaneously!

3. Server: Since i-TRiLOGI client program only communicates using TCP/IP networking protocol, it needs to connect to a "server" that listens on a TCP/IP port waiting for connections from i-TRiLOGI or other client programs. Most of the newer TRI's  brand of PLC, such as Nano-10, FMD and F-series PLCs have built-in "F-Server" on the CPU chip themselves (please refer to the PLC's User's Manual for details) to which i-TRiLOGI client can connect to directly. However, these new PLCs, as well as older PLCs (T100MD+ & T100MX+)  that do not have built-in Ethernet port can still be programmed using the same i-TRiLOGI software via a PC-based server software called "TLServer" that converts TCP/IP packets to serial communication (RS232/RS485) .

TLServer behaves like a typical web server and it is capable of serving HTML webpages as well as Java Applet to an Internet Browser such as Firefox, Chrome or  Internet Explorer . TLServer connects to the PLCs via the PC's serial communication port and it is the one responsible for conveying communication messages between the i-TRiLOGI client  and the M-series/F-Series PLCs.  (Note: TLServer is not included with Education version of i-TRiLOGI since there is no real PLC involved.)

Therefore if your PLC does not have Ethernet connection, then you must run TLServer in order to program or configure the PLC. To Start TLServer, double-click on its Icon and a TLServer panel  will appear. You can minimize TLServer but it should be actively running in order to service network request from i-TRiLOGI via the Internet or local area network.

If you have problem communicating with the PLC via Ethernet because you have either forgotten the IP address or the Ethernet settings are corrupted, then you can always still connect to the PLC via the TLServer. Hence it is important to learn how to use the TLServer to test communication with the PLC even if most of the time you will be programming the PLC via the Ethernet.

4. i-TRiLOGI client software is available in two versions:

   1. As a Local Java Application   - The i-TRiLOGI program (as well as the JVM, see below) must be locally installed in the PC that it runs on.

   2. As a Java Applet - The client computer only needs to use a Java-enabled Web browser such as the Internet Explorer 6.x  or Mozilla Fire Fox to invoke the i-TRiLOGI applet that is stored in the TLServer. There is no need to install the i-TRiLOGI software in the local computer. 

B.    i-TRiLOGI Application vs Applet: Which is Better?

C.    Starting The i-TRiLOGI Application

    Basically there are 3 methods in which you can start the i-TRiLOGI application, as follow:

1. If the i-TRiLOGI and JRE has been properly installed on your PC, you can just click on the "Start" button and select "i-TRiLOGI 6.x" in the "i-TRiLOGI 6" as follow:

2. You can also open My Computer and open the folder: C:\TRiLOGI\TL6\, then double click on the file "TL6.bat" to start i-TRiLOGI Application. Note that during the installation of the language pack the TL6.bat file will be replaced by the "TL6.bat" specific to that installed language. E.g. For running TL6 with Chinese language support, the TL6.bat will contain the following command line: 

                java -Duser.language=zh -jar TL64.jar

The command line above forces the i-TRILOGI to run with the Chinese language (Zh) encoding.  As such, do not  start the i-TRiLOGI application by double-clicking on the "TL64.jar"  file directly since that will only run i-TRiLOGI in the US English language instead of the language of choice.

3. The third alternative is to run the program from DOS command line: First, run the MS-DOS prompt (aka Command Prompt in Windows XP) and then navigate to the directory "C:\TRiLOGI\TL6" (assuming that is the folder where you've installed i-TRiLOGI). At the directory, enter the following command line:

C:\TRiLOGI\TL6> java  -jar -Duser.language=xx  TL64.jar

where xx is the ISO defined two characters definition of the language code. E.g. "es" for Spanish, "ko" for Korean and "zh" for Chinese.

NOTE: The main-window window size is "memorized" in the config.tl6 file.

HELP!!!

When running i-TRiLOGI, you can get on-line help any time by pressing the <F1>. A Help window will open to show you the typical key/mouse actions. You can also click on the <More Help> button to get context-sensitive help loaded into your web-browser. i-TRiLOGI version 6.2 and up now uses the default browser of your computer to display help data If the "config.tl6" line does not contain the path to an alternative browser in the: “Browser Path=” line (which it doesn't by default).

However, If you do not want to use the PCs default browser, then you'll need to use the "Notepad" program to manually edit  the "config.tl6" file in the "C:\TRiLOGI\TL6\" directory. For example: If you wanted to use Internet Explorer as the browser for i-TRiLOGI, you will need to Modify the first line in "config.tl6" as follows: 

Browser Path=C:/Program Files/Internet Explorer/IEXPLORE.EXE

to match the correct browser path info. There is no need to configure the applet browser path since the TL6 Applet automatically uses the same browser in which it was loaded to open the help files. Hence, the applet does not need to know the browser path at all.

D.    How To Activate i-TRiLOGI Applet Using Browser

1. First start up your Internet Browser. It should be either an Internet Explorer version 5.0 or later, or Mozilla FireBox 1.0 or later. Earlier versions of browser have some bugs in their JVM implementation and hence may not work well with i-TRiLOGI.
2. Next, check the TLServer front panel for its IP Address. If you are running TLServer on a PC without network connection it will probably show: IP Address = 127.0.0.1:9080. If you have an Internet connection before you start up TLServer, then you will see the Internet IP address of your PC. If your PC has both a local area network connection as well as a direct Internet connection, you will see two IP addresses being reported. (Although localhost address 127.0.0.1 may not be reported but it is always there as long as both the Client and the Server reside in the same computer.)
3. Now, simply key in the IP Address, including the port number in your browser's "Address" (for IE5) or "URL" (for Netscape) text entry area. E.g. For localhost connection, key in:  http://127.0.0.1:9080  

4. The browser will now issue a HTTP request to the TLServer. Since no filename has been specified, the default file in the web-server root directory "index.html" is loaded. This HTML file is written in Javascript to provide some other options. To start the i-TRiLOGI as an applet, select the appropriate option and the TL6x.jar file will be loaded as an applet from the TLServer into your browser for execution.

   Note:  The TLServer's root directory is not the same as the PC's root directory. In TLServer, the root directory is actually at "C:\TRiLOGI\TL6\public\"  . This is the directory where the index.html and a copy of the TL6Applet.jar file are stored and these files are served to the web browser when you enter the TLServer's IP Address as mentioned above. Visitors have no access to the PC's file directory above the server's root directory so the content of your other PC files will not be at risk of being exposed to visitors to TLServer.

   Disabling i-TRiLOGI Applet If you want to prevent visitors to TLServer from loading i-TRiLOGI Applet at all, just remove the "TL6Applet.jar" file from the "C:\TRiLOGI\TL6\public\" directory. In that case you can only access the PLC using the TL6 application program.